Ireland · Ruin
Cloughoughter Castle
Caisleán Chloch Uachtair
Cloughoughter Castle is a ruined circular tower standing on a small island in Lough Oughter, County Cavan, Ireland. Originating in the early 13th century and completed under the O'Reillys, it remained in active use into the 17th century before falling to siege and abandonment; the surviving drum-shaped keep and its thick masonry are preserved as a national monument.
First raised
1233
Its prime
1641
Today
Ruin
As it stood in 1641
What Cloughoughter Castle looked like in its prime.
A compact, drum-shaped stone keep rising directly from a tiny wooded island in deep freshwater; the castle is circular in plan with very thick grey limestone walls pierced by narrow embrasures and coved windows in the lower and middle courses. At prime the roofline would show a continuous parapet and walk around the top of the round tower; the island is little more than rock and a narrow margin of soil with trees, the distant tree-lined shores of the lough forming the background.
Its story
The story of Cloughoughter Castle.
Island Origins and the O'Reilly Stronghold, 1233
The island in Lough Oughter sits in the historic Kingdom of Breifne, in the part later subdivided into East Breifne, roughly today's County Cavan. The spot may have begun as a crannóg — an artificially created island — and there may have been fortification here as early as the sixth century. In the latter part of the 12th century it belonged to the O'Rourkes, but early in the 13th it seems to have passed to the Anglo-Norman de Lacy family, and architectural elements in the lower two storeys suggest building may have started as early as the first quarter of that century.
In 1233 the O'Reilly clan took possession and completed the castle, holding it for centuries through running conflicts with the O'Rourkes and feuds within their own kin. Its use as a prison began early: in the 1360s Philip O'Reilly was held here with "no allowance save a sheaf of oats for day and night and a cup of water, so that he was compelled to drink his own urine".
Plantation, Rebellion and a Bishop's Death, 1610–1649
After the land confiscations that followed the Plantation of Ulster in 1610, Cloughoughter was granted to Captain Hugh Culme. In 1641 another Philip O'Reilly, MP for Cavan and a prominent leader of the Irish Rebellion of that year, seized the castle and held it until 1653. Once again it served as a jail — Culme himself was among the prisoners, along with his son-in-law Henry Jones and William Bedell, the Church of Ireland Bishop of Kilmore, who died in February 1642, evidently from inadequate shelter against the cold winter.
In 1649 Owen Roe O'Neill, commander of the Ulster Army, died at the castle.
The Last Confederate Surrender, 1653
In March 1653 Commonwealth forces under Sir Theophilus Jones — brother of the prisoner Henry Jones, and so tied by marriage to the Culme family — laid siege to the island. Jones set his artillery in the nearby townland of Innishconnell, and the damage his cannon shot inflicted remains visible to this day. On 27 April the garrison gave in: the last major Confederacy position to surrender.
Left in ruins, the round island castle became a frequent subject for artists in the 18th and 19th centuries; a Dublin University Magazine travelogue of 1852 admired the "beautiful ruin, round, massive, hoary", noting it was unlike most Irish castles, which are square. Conservation work began in 1987, and the structure is protected under the National Monuments Act.
Step inside
7 places to explore in 1641.
The record describes 7 distinct spots at Cloughoughter Castle, including 2 interiors: ground-floor prison cell, upper chamber with coved windows. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
Build Your Own Castle
Recreate Cloughoughter Castle with AI to explore it.
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Clans who held Cloughoughter Castle.
The families that held Cloughoughter Castle for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
O'Rourke
Owned by the O'Rourkes in the latter part of the 12th century.
de Lacy
In the hands of the Anglo-Norman de Lacy family in the early 13th century, until 1233.
The O'Reilly clan took possession in 1233, completed the castle and retained it for centuries; Philip O'Reilly held it again, 1641–53.
Culme
Granted to Captain Hugh Culme after the Plantation of Ulster confiscations of 1610.
